My father never saved money. When he died, he left very little for my mother other than a modest pension. She should be in a retirement home. She is forgetful, and she is almost blind. But she doesn’t have the money to go into a retirement home. And she wants to live independently.
She was living in a place owned by my sister until 5 months after my father died. It made sense. My sister is an empty nester who doesn’t work. She has time and money. Despite this my sister pushed my mom to move into the same building as me. She said that she could not be my mothers only “regular” companion anymore. (My mother has very few friends).
I work full time at a very stressful job. I have nothing to give at the end of the workday and suffer from depression and work related burnout. My sister feels that because I am single, I “only have myself to take care of” and should be able to care for my mother. She hasn’t worked for many years, and just doesn’t get the fact that I have a very small window of time in the mornings and evenings. The weekend is spent running around doing errands.
My relationship with my mother has always been difficult. She is a very critical person. Since she has moved in, I feel like I’m living at home again. She is very critical and it’s getting me down. I resent my sister because she has so much more time to care for our mother. Her and her husband have money. I don’t. And I HAVE to work.
My sister does come over twice a week to take my mother out but then she gets to swan off back to her home 20 minutes away. She is refusing to let my fathers death and mothers needs impact her life.
She is going away for three months on vacation, leaving me to deal with my mother and my job. I am so angry and resentful. I don’t understand why she gets to have her life and I don’t. I’m also very angry that my father was so bad with his money and left things in such a mess. My parents emigrated and never had to care for aging parents. I don’t have kids and will have nobody to care for me. Why should I have to give up my 50’s into my 60’s to take care of my mother?
I’m not even sure if I have a question. But I feel alone. And I am hoping to find other people on this forum who have faced the same issues.
Marina
But what are your alternatives? If you'd like to place your mom in a skilled care facility she'll have to apply for Medicaid and that process takes a long time. Can you hang in there until she's approved? How do you feel about a nursing home?
Welcome to the club!
You are not alone. I know caregiving is truly a lonely feeling place to be, especially when dealing with a parent that has personality disorders, entitlement issues and is just plain rude and critical. I bet some days you want to tell her to stuff it, who is she, in her position to be critical of anyone, she also did not plan for her future. I know that a lot of women in our parents generation did not work out of the home, but sheesh, couldn't they put some money aside. Nope, not my mom either, she acts like money needs to be spent faster than it comes in.
Marina, your sister is not your master, you do not have to do what she tells you too. She has placed you in a terrible position but keep your chin up, you have options. This is for a short while until everything is in place and we can all hang on for a short while longer.
Contact social services, probably APS and tell them that your mom is a vulnerable adult with no care. (Do not let them guilt you into being that care, heads up they will stoop very low to make family take the senior in, I told one that if she thought it was such a good idea she could take him home because I wasn't, PERIOD END OF THAT DISCUSSION, you will have to be more hard headed then them. Remember, this is your very survival you are fighting for, your life depends on not caving to a government employee that could care less about you, your mom or your sister. They are paid to do a job and you will need to make sure they do it.)
You can tell your sister or not that is up to you, she made a decision that completely effected you with out consulting with you, so in my opinion she set the ground rules.
Be sure and tell APS that your mom will say she has you as a caregiver and that is not the case, you are not her caregiver.
Set boundaries, only provide help on certain days and stick to it. The more she can make your boundaries flex the more she will push. If she starts in on you, tell her you will be back when she can treat you with respect and kindness, then leave. Do not take her calls or let her push in on you, then see her on the next scheduled help day. If she gets ugly, repeat the above, everytime. She will get that you are done being her doormat and you do what you do out of obligation and you are not obligated to be treated ugly. Tell your sister the same when she tries to bully you into doing her bidding. You are a grown woman and you are entitled to be treated with respect if the expect you to help. If they can't manage to show you respect then you can't manage to help.
I hope that you can protect yourself during all of the process to get your mom the help she needs. It will most likely get very heated and ugly, you are upsetting their apple cart, so be prepared for the crashing, banging and booming. It is their control of you exploding, that is very noisy.
Stand your ground, find things that help you find joy and decompression from your stressful job and learn to turn their ugliness towards you off. We all have our own stuff, including them, but we don't beat one another in the head with it. We play nice until the bully corners us then we stand and defend our own survival, you can do this.
Hugs 2 u!
I have been divorced since my children were 2 and 3 years old, working as a secretary trying to make ends meet often without two dimes to rub together. Mom lives an hour away from me. I have been left to drive an hour each way to care for Mom, to get the calls when Mom falls and is taken to the hospital, to leave my job and race to the ER, to take days off work to sit by her bedside, etc. I’ve taken ALL of her anger and resentment. Mom also refused to allow anyone to come in to help, even my daughters. Travel became one of the most stressful things in my life. Why bother trying to take a vacation when I had to call her twice a day and hear her ask, “When will you be home?!” About 1.5 years ago I started to think that Mom might have a little dementia. I retired so that I could spend more time helping her, and my visits quickly escalated from twice a week to every other day. It was exhausting and mentally draining. When she went into the hospital this July, it became wildly apparent that the dementia is worse than I thought. When she was in her home surroundings, she was able to hide a lot, or I was able to ignore a lot. She was diagnosed with Major Neurocognitive Disorder. Now she is in a wonderful nursing home and, after 5 years of stress and tears, I can finally breathe.
I wrote to my sister just to take the high road and tell her briefly what’s going on with Mom (I stupidly thought that maybe she’d want to make amends, since Mom can not remember why sister left, and cries all the time that she’ll die without ever seeing her first born again). Sister wrote back saying that she still wants to have a relationship with me, but MOM ruined this, and MOM did that, and MOM turned you against me, blah blah blah. Mom didn’t do a damn thing in that regard, sister is the one who suddenly moved and left me here!!
Anyway, getting back to the point ... “Isthisreallyreal” is right on. You do have to enact the strategies she outlines. I had to, and it was the hardest thing I ever did. I had to set boundaries. I had to say, “I am not 12 years old, Mom, I am 61 years old! I raised a family, I held a good job at a big company for many years. I pulled myself out of poverty to a point where I am finally comfortable. AND YOU CANNOT TALK TO ME THAT WAY ANYMORE. If you calm down, I will stay. If you continue to yell at me and verbally abuse me, I will go. I will not come back until X date.” I had to do that a few times. Her episodes didn’t disappear, but they became less frequent.
Also, she is totally correct about how everyone involved in your mother’s care will ask, “Why don’t you bring her to live with you?” It really caught me off guard when people started asking me that! I would stammer, “I live in a tiny 800 sf house. One bathroom with a tub that she won’t be able to step into. One bedroom is only 9’ x 9.5’. There are stairs up to both doors into the house. I just got married last year after being divorced for 22 years!!” And they would just stare at me, like none of those are valid reasons. Even my 27-year-old daughter would say, “It’s none of their f***ing business why she can’t live with you!”
So sorry about your job. I have a feeling a NH is not going to work with Mom. Does someone have her POAs for medical and financial? If not and she is in her right mind, try to get them. It makes it so much easier in the future.
I have a feeling you aren't going to change sister. So, you have to change you. You probably need to make sister aware you only have so many hours a day. You may work 8 but there's the getting up and ready, travel time back and forth. You get home between 5 and 6 (lets say) eat, relax a little and then off to bed 9 or 10 so you can get up and do it all again. Weekends, doing what you can't during the week. You don't have the time she does. Tell her you need to work together. Otherwise, she ( since she is home during the day when agencies are open) needs to find Mom help. You can't do it from work or it will jeopardize your job.
Boundries with Mom. I know it will be hard but she also needs to realize there r only so many hours in the day, and you work most of them. She needs to rely on both her daughters. When u can't do, tell her you r sorry call sister and see what she can do. When Mom gets nasty, tell her you do not have to put up with it. If she doesn't listen to you, leave telling her you will be back when she shows some respect.
My Mom was easy but I just couldn't handle 24/7 care. My husband and I were retired and I wanted to do things together before the time came we couldn't because of age or health. I placed her in a Daycare. First day she came home she told me she didn't like the bus I needed to drive her. I told her No. The facility offered transportation and she was using it. Mom had to be ready by 8am. Getting her up and going was hard enough but me too! I am not a morning person. They bathed her for me too. She refused a couple of times. I told her she couldn't refuse because I can't bathe her and she needed to let them. After that if she refused the aides told her I said she had to. It worked. Being assertive was new to me especially with a parent.
I know, its not going to be easy but for your sanity and health you got to do for you.
My sister thinks I am more obligated because I am single. I have responsibility for myself only, whereas she is a “wife, mother and grandmother.” I never met the right man....and now I’m being punished for it.
I may have responsibility for my self only...however I have no support system so I have to do everything for myself. I had cancer in 2016 and had to go through that without the help of my family.
Thats fine...I will take care of myself. But if my family isn’t willing to be there for me, why should I be expected to care for my mother.
I should not be expected to have a full time job AND care for my mother. If I had the time and money that my sister does I wouldn’t MIND caring for her. If I had the money I would pay for outside care...despite the fact that my parents should have prepared themselves financially for old age.
But it I don’t have the time or the money.
After my mom started on oxygen and dad lost his drivers license due to dementia I assumed more of a caregiver role for my parents. I was 2 hours away vs my sister being 1000 miles away. I changed jobs and reduced hours to allow more time to run and help my parents. Thankfully I had a cousin nearby who helped them and me a lot. When it came time to decide that our parents need to move to get better care my single sister said well they can’t move by me as they will ruin my life. I’m assuming this was said as my husband had a good paying job and I didn’t really have to work. So yes the caregiver burden was shifted on to me.
I agree with the others that you need to set boundaries with your mother. She should help out doing the calls that you cannot do. What about your sisters children stepping up and helping out.
Stand firm against your sister.
It is likely that neither you nor your sister have any LEGAL responsibility regarding your mother, and MORAL responsibility can’t be arbitrarily shifted from one sibling to another without the consent of both parties.
Once the LEGAL parameters of Mother’s circumstances are in place, you will have the choice of whether or not your personal relationship with your sister is valuable enough TO YOU to accept her terms in dealing with Mother OR whether for your own health and welfare, you must reject your sister’s decision making and make the choice of the best of the bad solutions available to the three of you and move forward.
Many of us who care for a frail and/or confused elderly person wind up exactly where you are, and at some point you wind up in a position where you’re choosing whether YOUR blood pressure and anxiety and depression are more or less important than the other parts of the triangle, and unfortunately, YOU have a choice of either becoming your own advocate and best friend, or winding up being snowballed under the weight of the obligations you allowed yourself to assume.
Final point-do the best you can when dealing with your sister to avoid being overtly angry and/or whining.
The facts here, while they do not lead to any conclusion, complete or fair or just to any of the people involved, are really the most important steps toward getting everyone concerned into some sense of progress forward, so skip the emotional stuff, and stick to absolute facts,
I’m living a life similar to yours right now, and recently learned that my brother was operating under MANY misconceptions about my lifestyle and its limits, so part of my job right now is cleaning up all the stuff he was incorrectly thinking as well as maintaining a personal life and crafting a reasonably humane plan for my cantankerous parent.
Very best of luck as you continue working through your struggle.
Your mother refuses to accept outside help. You and your sister live in a culture in which women work and are not available for caregiving. Mom needs to accept that.
It may be time to step back and evaluate what you are willing to do for your mom. Tell her what you can do, say once a week trip for groceries. Say " no, sorry, can't do that" to other requests.
If you are firm, mom will understand that you aren't a doormat.
Dr Coppertino
So much more to my sad,volitile life with parents..but reason for my writing...I would think a small pension and SOC sec would pay for some or allot of care. The VA help, is only there is all income is less than $16000. So if it is, then great, maybe you can use their help. And Medicaid also has low threshold. But any senior Care website,phone call can tell you options. Medicare would do a few months of PT,OT if deemed necessary..but that would get professionals involved, to see if she can even take care of herself. You need to call senuir care people and they will have good options.
Good luck. I feel your stress,frustration and 'not fair'ness of it all.
actually wanted to have the caregivers 24/7. We hired our caregivers privately and not through an expensive agency. Mom passed away peacefully a few months ago and neither of my other two sisters had even been by to see her or help out. I felt fortunate that even though I was not my mom’s favorite child growing up, she still recognized me with affection until her death (as her words escaped her by then). Relieving me of the stress of trying “to do it all” was a gift! I’m married, have 4 grown children, 8 grandchildren and a full-time private practice working 60 hours a week - and I didn’t lose sleep as I was still able to visit mom everyday and take her for wheelchair walks around her neighborhood. It was a joy beyond words. See if you and your sister can just agree on a 3-4 hour a day caregiver to start with so you won’t be so overwhelmed. Good luck and enjoy your mom’s final days. They may turn out to be a precious few!
Have the gas line capped off and put in the electric stove. The stove can still be left on and cause issues, but at least it is not an open flame and won't fill the house with gas!!!
Unfortunately, life isn't fair. I know you realize this. But I amso glad you have taken this opportunity to let your feelings be heard.
Btw, I am my Mom's "only". No siblings. I work full-time with many, many overtime hours, and am single and in my 60's. I brought my Mom into my home. It has NOT been easy personality-wise. I have set some ground rules. Most of the time now, things are much better. But, sometimes not, and it drives me nutz, and I get up and walk out of the room and go to my bedroom with headphones on and watch movies on my computer or listen to music and read. I have had to set hard limits and still take time for myself. And I try VERY hard not to feel guilty about needing time to myself... going to a movie or whatever. This is still my choice. And if/when the time comes, I will make the hard choice to find a place for Mom.
Now, for a moment, take your sister out of the equation. Your mom is living in the same building but not in your apartment. Can you find some help for your Mom... like calling your local Area on Aging and seeing if they can provide some county-provided help/companion care/ personal care/homemaking? And at the same time, apply for Medicaid for the Long Term Care Plan? That plan provides those services (no charge) in home. And will help if your Mom needs to go to ALF.
Don't, absolutely don't feel guilty. You have a right to your life as well. You just need to take some time out, go somewhere away from your apartment (lunch, park, somewhere where you can think a bit objectively) and sit down and make a list of what you need for you, what your Mom's "needs" are as opposed to "wants", and ways to accomplish. And DO call the Aging place and do apply for Medicaid.
And down the road, if placement in ALF, the Medicaid LTC Plan will help pay. And if extra is needed, ask your sister if she would help. She may be willing to do that.
P.S. And keep coming back to this forum and let us know how you are doing :). People here really care.